


Mourning Light

by dogmatix, norcumi



Series: Ghosts of 66 [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Deathfic, GFY, Gen, Post Order 66, Redemption, Songfic, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 19:18:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2703497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogmatix/pseuds/dogmatix, https://archiveofourown.org/users/norcumi/pseuds/norcumi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been six years since the Jedi Order fell. Now a clone trooper finds himself fallen on a battlefield, comforted and haunted by his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mourning Light

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely the fault of [thisgreysilhouette](http://thisgreysilhouette.tumblr.com/) (thank you!). When she posted [this,](http://thisgreysilhouette.tumblr.com/post/100665637096/just-close-your-eyes-the-sun-is-going-down) I had to go listen to the song mentioned. I’ve never heard [Safe and Sound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzhAS_GnJIc) before. I like it, but being in the headspace I’m in, before halfway through I was already latched on to Order 66.

_Rebel scum_. The words echoed in his mind, bitter and tasting like the ashes falling down around him. Bly growled and tried to shove himself off his side, fed up with staring at the burning building. For a moment, he thought he could feel hands on his pauldrons, assisting him over, but when he thumped onto his back there was no one.

He bit back the usual bitterness at the Rebels, swallowing the painful lump in the throat that usually went with the cold spot at his side. _I’m sorry, General_ , his mind whispered, since he didn’t even have the strength or care to mouth it the way he wanted to.

 _It’s all right, Bly_ , her voice whispered back, and he blinked. General Secura was dead, six years dead, shot in the back.

Shot by him.

He could swear he’d heard her.

Bly let his head tilt back, the absurdly small eyeholes on the damned _storm_ trooper bucket finally showing him some of the evening sky.

The stars on this dirtball would be beautiful tonight.

They had once made a habit of star-gazing. She'd made the excuse that it was to help her learn more about the local cultures, to see what star clusters they thought made good constellations, what those meant and signified. At first he’d accepted that and dutifully sat by her side, impressed by the practicality of the exercise and enjoying the challenge. Every planet, every system was different, and it made it easier to remember planets as more than "that battleground where we lost this brother, or that one, or this company."

It had taken over a year for him to realize that General Aayla Secura did not often remember the constellations they "learned." It was about looking up, away from the bloodshed. It was about finding something long-lasting when everything was dying around them.

He had still memorized what he could, but he’d started to enjoy the brilliant lights in their own right.

There was a spurt of blasterfire to his left, cries and the thuds of limp meat in armor hitting the ground. No brothers fallen there; every week there were less and less clones around. He was the – he had been the last in this company.

Now there weren’t any. Another brother down, and lost, but they had been lost for so long.

 _Not any more. I’ve got you._ General Secura’s voice was persistent tonight. He thought he heard her sometimes, a murmur of comfort on dark, late nights when he was painfully aware he was the only clone in the barracks, watched suspiciously by the "real humans," not one who would mind if he took his blaster to the ’fresher and did what so many of his brothers had done.

Order 66 had claimed at least as many clones as Jedi, and so many of the killers were the same.

Fuck, he was crying.

Well, there were worse ways to die.

He tried to reach up, fumble off the damn fucking _bucket_ , but he couldn’t get his hands to obey him. The blaster shot to his upper chest was a distant burn amidst the coldness spreading across his body. There were others to the torso, but that was the one that he knew was going to be it for him.

The quiet, bitter part of him didn’t resent the Rebels. It sounded like they’d cleared out the whole garrison, and that couldn’t have happened to a nastier little nest of vipers.

He was glad. The local stormtroopers had been vicious, enjoying the power they could exercise over anyone in range.

He’d never been happier in the last six years than the time he’d started a brawl – and won – with a dozen of the bastards, his "fellow troops," and the time in the brig had been sweet.

The Twi’lek they’d wanted to abuse had escaped unharmed, and no one thought anything of it.

_He found his way to the local Rebels. He left the planet the day after you saved him._

He smiled somehow. _With all due respect, General, if I’m going to imagine you yammering in my ear I’d rather it be about relevant things_.

He’d _missed_ her laugh, bright with a touch of a lilt to it. _And what is relevant to you now, Bly?_

The cold snapped back to his left side. It was where she’d walked most often, it was where she’d been when he’d gotten the order, and no medic could explain it.

He figured it was guilt.

 _I wish you wouldn’t_ , his imagination murmured, before apparently it decided to go wild. After all, no better time to do it. He thought he could feel her, a gentle hand – warm, that was a nice detail – cupping his cheek, helmet be damned.

"I shot you," he whispered, forcing the words out, feeling the air move out of his lungs in new and painful ways.

 _You had no choice_. She’d held him like this once, that must be why he was imagining it. It had been...it had been the planet where all the constellations were animal parts. The Liver had been spectacularly pretty.

They’d watched the stars come up from just outside the impromptu camp, her kneeling behind him, he braced up a little against her upper legs. The General’s lekku had trailed down, framing her face and him. Her hands had been warm then too, one on his shoulder, the other on his arm. When she caught him looking around, checking the perimeter, she’d given him that smile, the gentle one that had just the slightest wry twist to it. “We’re safe here. I promise. Just enjoy the stars, Bly.”

 _You are safe,_ her voice whispered again in his mind. Gentle numbness was starting to spread through his body, and it was odd – he didn’t think he was that far gone. He’d thought he had maybe another half hour of bleeding out, possibly less . _I might not be able to do much, but I can at least keep the pain at bay._

 _WHY would you do that? I SHOT YOU! I...killed you_. He had made it fast and painless as possible, but she had been a Jedi. She’d already been turning, she had looked him in the eyes, but he’d been wearing his helmet, so there was no way she could have known.

In his head, she sighed, and in his imagination she shifted a little, moving the weight of his shoulders from one leg to another. Her hand trailed reassuringly down his cheek, clearing away tear tracks. _Bly. Stop that. I learned about Order 66. I heard you and your brothers arguing about it afterwards. I saw..._ Her voice broke, and she bent forward. Now her tears dropped down upon his face as well. _I saw how many of them took their own lives rather than risk doing that again._

It was his turn to sigh. _Not all of us were that brave_.

He’d forgotten how her glare could sear him. _You would not have thought it brave of you. You would have been angry with yourself, ashamed. If it had brought you peace, I would have mourned, but we both know that is not the case. You were brave enough to face this new world head on._

He tried to sigh and shake his head. The first didn’t work well, but the second, he could manage just enough. _I’ve been hiding_.

_You’ve been doing good where you can._

_Stop arguing with me, dammit._

She smiled down at him, fingertips still stroking his face dry. _Arguing with a superior officer? Really?_

He grinned back, just a little. _You always enjoyed when I did that_. It was easy to admit – she was dead, he was–

Bly blinked, and stared at the translucent, blue vision of his General, who he could _feel_ , as if she were solid, real. _But I’m not dead yet_ , his imagination whispered.

 _No, not yet._ Her smile turned sad, grieving. _You remember when we talked of the Force?_

_Which time?_

_Do not sass your General, Bly_. Her smile softened the teasing comment. _When you asked me to describe it to you._

_Everywhere, part of everything. That which binds all life together._

_Yes._ All _life – even that which has lived a full cycle._

_...are you real, or are you my imagination?_

_I’m real. I’m here._ Everything but Aayla blurred, and he stopped trying to not cry. He could see her smile, and only a figment of his imagination could be that clear when everything else was indistinct shadows. _I heard you. You were apologizing to me even when you fired. I could hear you, the hidden parts of you, that asked me to prove that Jedi were better than this, as powerful and deathless as the propaganda painted us. We were not. They are still not._

 _Some survived?_ He tried to hide the hope, the simple joy at the news. He knew – hell, the whole fucking Empire knew – that General Kenobi had escaped somewhere, but – _I was pretty sure some of those rumors were just to keep Vader too busy running around the galaxy instead of killing more than half his minions on Imperial Center._

She gave a haughty little sniff. _CORUSCANT has seen worse tyrants. While Palpatine might need methods of keeping Vader leashed, no, there is truth. Some survive._

Not many, then. Still. Anything was better than nothing. _I’m glad_.

They shared a tiny smile as the sun kept sinking, the cloudless sky turning darker and darker blue. She glowed like this, kneeling with him. The sounds around him faded with the light – the civvie crews fighting the fires, ignoring the bodies around them because really, there were more important things than the dead; the faint, far off screams of blasterfire; the roar of the fading fires. _When are you leaving, General?_

_What makes you think I would leave you?_

_I’m no Jedi._ He tried to smile again, but no matter how small or wry it was he could not manage that anymore. He could see stars appearing above, could see a few of them through her. _Just a clone._

 _Bly._ She sighed and gave him a slightly reproving look. _We are_ all _part of the Force. I thought we just reviewed this._

_You didn’t use to be this optimistic. Or impractical._

_It’s never too late to learn._

_I would have thought otherwise._

_Death does not end all things._

He sighed, not sure if he had breath enough to do that for real, or if it was still his imagination. Jedi. Some things never changed. Philosophy and theory when reality was the relevant thing. _General. Aayla. Why are you here? If you’re real, and not my imagination trying to, I don’t know, fool me into being comfortable dying, then what possible purpose could you have here?_

Her expression softened again, and she leaned down to gently kiss him on the forehead. When she pulled away, it was as if everything had inverted. The stars were brilliant, shining through buildings and bystanders, while she was solid instead of transparent. “I’ve no more let go of you than you have ever let go of me. Death does not end all things.” She moved somehow without jostling him, sliding from behind him to kneel next to him. His hand was in hers now, and the numbness was gone.

So was the pain. He took in a deep, somewhat surprised breath, and he smiled as it worked _right_. “Doesn’t mean it’s the right time to start things.”

“Whyever not?” Her smile was teasing, gentle, and she tugged a little on his hand. "Come see the stars with me, Bly," Aayla asked, the way she had so many times before.

Bly grinned back, rueful and amused as he had not been in too long. He hadn’t been able to turn away then. He didn’t want to now. He hauled on her hand – steady and powerful as only a Jedi could be – and stood. She did not need to ask him to not look back at the ruin he left behind. He had no desire to see it. He stretched, feeling the comfortable weight of his armor – _his_ armor, Phase II _clone_ trooper armor, his colors and designs instead of the pasty dead white crap he’d been saddled with. "I’ve missed this." His hand was still in hers, and the General gave it a light squeeze. "So. Where do we start, General?"

Her laugh was just as bright when it was solid instead of ghostly. She didn’t let go of his hand. "This way, Bly."


End file.
